Baka to Test to Shokanjuu episode 8

It seems that Funimation have decided to license Baka to Test already. A bit of a hasty decision if you ask me since only about half the episodes had aired when they decided and 6 episodes isn’t enough to decide on the next best thing. Also for some strange and unknown reason they’ve only translated some of the title. Shokanjuu is now Summon the Beasts but they leave Baka as it is. Maybe they’re trying to market this to the hardcore otaku core who know what baka means but I think it’s a stupid decision.

Summary: The school system gets seriously messed up and Yoshii fixes it with some effort.

First off, this thing wash seriously awash with parodies, both ones that I recognized, ones that I didn’t know but looked like a parody, and even ones that probably weren’t parodies but looked right well familiar. To illustrate, here’s my Parody Corner:

As for the episode itself, it’s good to finally see Yoshii use that bracelet for something useful but it seems to come across as Yoshii’s chibi being solid as a bad thing since he keeps getting beaten up through it. There seems to be no improvement in his actual intelligence so if he’s going to get any stronger any time soon it’ll be through that bracelet.

As for the plot, that guy at the start of the episode does pose some questions. Who was he? Will he turn up again? Is he actually important or is a mysterious character setting off the plot yet another parody I missed? The interesting question is why was he hacking into the system in the first place. It seems like that was the system for the summoned chibis so was he trying to hack them for some reason? Or maybe he was trying to find information on how they worked. The whole Summoning system is a bit of a mystery really. All they’ve said has been at the start of the series that it was a revolutionary new design or something like that and they never say why it was designed. Baka to Test seems too jokey to have a plot that would delve into this but who knows…

Now the big question here is: what’s up with the principal? She really seems to have some underlying motive here with all her vague references to idiots and with setting up all this in the first place.The plot doesn’t focus on her that much, probably because there’s no quirky character trait or love interest but I wish it would. I want to find out what she’s up to. Here’s a few of my theories: 1. She set up this program as a way to help idiots because she is/was once an idiot herself and wants them to learn from her mistakes.

2. She’s a multi millionaire/genius with too much time on her hands.

3. She’s Yoshii’s long lost mother/sister/aunt/whatever and is secretly helping him to improve himself out of familial concern.

4. She’s one of Yoshii’s love interest’s (probably Glasses Guy’s) long lost mother/sister/aunt/whatever and is secretly helping him to improve himself so he’ll make a better husband/wife for her beloved child.

5. Yoshii’s actually playing a very realistic video game and she’s the narrator/guild master/helper person who assigns you quests and gives you hints at those bits in the game that make no sense.

6. She’s just the principal and happens to seem all important while actually not being so at all.

7. She’s a Seleção who’s method of saving the country involves either making the idiots smarter or making the idiots powerful so the world will be goverened by idiots in the future (it explains where they’d get the money for the system at least).

I hope some underlying plot point will run through the last few episode. It’ll make things a bit more interesting to watch and I’ll feel more like it was really worth watching this, and it’ll also avoid a crappy harem end. I hope even more that my Bit Torrent will start working so I can watch the last few episodes, stupid thing.

2 Replies to “Baka to Test to Shokanjuu episode 8”

Funimation is making a lot of stupid choices lately…while I like Baka to Test to Shokanju, that would be a risky choice to license, I think. Well, as long as they keep pissing me off, I’m not going to buy from them anyway.
.-= Janette´s last blog ..I’m losing respect for Funimation =-.